


Touch Me Tender

by angiesus



Category: Love Simon (2018), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 07:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14130738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angiesus/pseuds/angiesus
Summary: Leah and Abby are going to Bram's Halloween party together as friends. Neither knows that they both have the desire to be much more, with the influences of a party around them, what could possibly go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is canon compliant on my ongoing Leah/Abby fic, "In Uncharted Waters". I have had this particular part of the fic planned out for a while and wanted to share it now.

“Hey Leah, can you help me zip this up?” Abby asks loudly but sweetly as she struggles to fondle with the zipper of the leotard for her Wonder Woman costume. Leah’s getting changed for the halloween party in the bathroom while Abby gets dressed in Leah’s room. Leah insisted they get ready at her house because it’s closer to Bram’s, and she’s super sensitive to the idea of drunk driving. Abby doesn’t ask about it, Leah isn’t one to share more than she feels she has to.

“Just a minute Abbs,” Leah calls from the bathroom. Abby smiles at the nickname that Leah has adopted for her. Abby’s grandma used to call her that too, it makes her feel warm inside. She sits on Leah’s bed for a minute while she waits, inspecting her room, finding any clues she can to uncrack the mystery of Leah Burke. Her blue walls are mostly barren, she has a few posters of musicians she likes and some fairy lights above her bed. There’s an old picture of her, Simon, and Nick on her bedside table. There’s a vanity across from her bed where she keeps her cosmetics, but there’s not many personal aspects in her room. It almost looks like she’s just moved in, but Leah has lived here her whole life. Abby dangles her feet from the bed as she waits for Leah to come aid her with this annoying zipper. And Abby may have just felt herself kick a box under the bed. Listen, she isn’t one to snoop, but Abby just wants to know Leah. She will take what she can get. Abby steps off the bed and crouches down to pull out the box under the bed skirt. It’s a pretty large box, and Abby can tell it means something to Leah. It looks personalized on the outside, she’s painted the exterior with colors and cute designs. This makes Abby smile, like really wide. So of course she can’t resist opening it. What she finds is a marvelous surprise. Apparently, Leah is an artist, and a really fucking good one at that.  She has all sorts of drawings, some are just random sketches, some are of her friends, one of Abby included, others are of her surroundings like the view of the trees outside her window. These are precious to Leah, they’re all in perfect condition despite some of them being dated back years ago. This is her escape, her passion, the part of Leah that only Leah knows. Abby wants to absorb all of it, how could she become some close to somebody but they seem so far away? Abby has always been an open book, or at least presented herself that way. She was bubbly and confident and self assured. She was brave and bold and assertive. Nobody ever knew if Abby was hurting or had a secret self, nobody expected her to. Hell, Abby doesn’t even know if she has a secret self. These past few months she’s been “the new girl from D.C.”, or “the new drama club member, or “the new girl of her friend group”. Abby needed to find something she loved, like really really loved. She hears Leah walking down the hall and back to her room. Shit. Abby quickly puts everything back in its rightful place, but careful enough to keep Leah’s art in its perfect condition. She sits back on the bed casually, and Leah enters the room unphased, intently checking her text message.

“Simon is at Nick’s, we’ll stop there and meet up on the way to Bram’s,” Leah states, never looking up from her phone.

“Sounds good,” says Abby, she continues, “Can you uhh..ya know?”. Leah finally looks up at Abby, she’s gesturing to the zipper at the back of her costume, the one she asked Leah to help her with.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Leah mutters quickly, going a little flush. Abby stands up from behind the bed and Leah stands in behind Abby. Close enough that Abby can feel Leah’s breath on the nape of her neck, she would be lying if she said it didn’t send shivers down her spine. Leah’s hands are soft against Abby’s back, and Abby wishes they would linger there a little longer. Leah zips Abby up quickly. 

“All done,” Leah says. They both look at themselves in their reflection in the mirror of Leah’s vanity. Leah’s face slightly shielded by her large white hat. Abby looks undeniably amazing in her Wonder Woman costume. Leah stares at her a little too long and a little too intensely. The confidence Abby wears is even sexier than her costume. She knows she’s going to make a statement and own it, and she’s doing it all for herself. Tonight, Abby isn’t the new anything. Leah wonders what it’s like to want to claim yourself, to want to be more than a title. She’s gotten so comfortable in her world of being “Simon’s best friend”, or “the girl of the group”. Hell, she’s even wearing a couples costume with Simon tonight. Most of that coming from the fact that Bram insisted on being “Post Presidency Barack Obama” and they don’t really make costumes for gay couples. Regardless, Leah knows she wouldn’t show up in something that would make her stand out. She doesn’t always like the way she looks, but she’s also afraid to show people a Leah under the surface. Leah thinks Abby might just be the most fascinating person she’s ever met. From the first day they met, Abby never wanted to be on the outside. She declared herself a member of their friend group on her very first day of school. At her first Creekwood party, she’s showing up as best-dressed. Leah doesn’t want to be Abby,  but she wants to know her ways, wants to be by her side. Leah wants Abby to know who she is beyond the surface.

When they get to Nick’s house, he and Simon are waiting in the kitchen, gorging on pizza. Which is certainly not Simon’s smartest decision when he’s wearing all white. Abby runs over and grabs a slice, the consensus: nobody cares about ruining their costume tonight.

“There’s the John to my Yoko,” Leah says as she approaches them, “and there’s Nick Eisner as...Nick Eisner.”

“I couldn’t more obviously be Cristiano Ronaldo,” Nick says in a fake offended tone and turns around to showcase the piece of paper he taped to his back that reads “Ronaldo” in bubble letters. Leah rips the piece of paper off and fills in the bubble letters with a Sharpie she finds in Nick’s drawer. It goes unnoticed, but Abby watches this intently. She wonders if Nick and Simon know that Leah is an artist. 

“So, Leah and I are obviously taking home the title of best costume tonight,” says Simon.

“Are you kidding, Si? I’m giving both of you a run for your money,” Abby says and stands up to showcase her costume. Simon gives her a look that says “oh, you’re on Suso.” Nick stares at Abby, speechless, and it makes Leah feel this weirdness in  her gut. Not because Nick was her crush throughout all of junior year, but because she looked at Abby the same way. Nick’s look reads desire, and it makes Leah think she may like Abby in a way she never thought. Leah swallows and breaks the silence.

“Uhh, do you want to head over to Bram’s now? It’s past eleven,” Leah points out. Nick, Abby, and Simon all say yes almost in perfect unison. Simon walks over to Leah and holds his arm in hers.

“Let’s go see my man, my lady,” Simon jokes and Leah genuinely laughs. It makes Simon smile, and he kisses her forehead. 

When they get to Bram’s, the house is already packed. Some shitty overproduced song is blaring through the speakers. Everybody’s attention seems to be on Garrett who’s singing karaoke quite terribly to said song. The crew looks for Bram, and finds him at the kitchen counter pouring people drinks. Apparently Bram has taken up a new career path as a mixologist. 

“Hello, Mr. President,” Simon says to Bram in this pseudo sexy voice that may or may not make everybody cringe.

“Get a room,” Leah says, and Simon flips her off.

“Hey, be nice you two, nobody is screwing up the single best party Creekwood High has ever seen,” Bram gloats. He hands Nick a beer, which he happily accepts.

“I will take one too,” says Simon. Nick, Leah, and Bram give him the most flabbergasted look known to man. 

“Since when do you like beer?,” asks Nick. Somebody had to take on for the team.

“Since always,” Simon says, nobody is convinced. Bram hands him a plastic cup of beer anyways. Simon winks at him to say ‘thank you’. So that’s what this was about, impression, they’ve been dating almost a year and still try to impress each other. Just last week Nick had to shop with Bram for four hours to find a new cologne that Simon would like after his old one made him cough too much. Their friends want to call them pathetic and gross, but the truth is, they’re perfect. Not to mention crazy brave. 

“Leah, Abby, do either of you want a beer?” asks Bram.

“Yes please,” says Abby.

“No thanks,” says Leah at the same time. This makes their friends laugh, Abby and Leah blush like crazy. Bram hands Abby her cup and she thanks him. He reaches into the cooler to offer Leah a wine cooler.

“Here, you should try this, it’s mostly just juice,” says Bram, not wanting her to feel left out. Bram is one of the best people Leah knows. Bram is probably the best person everybody who knows him knows. 

“Thank you,” she says and accepts. She takes a swig of it and is surprised it tastes good. It’s strawberry flavored and not strong at all. Leah decides she like it. 

Nick, Simon, and Bram all engage in conversation and the girls are just kind of standing out the outside. The opposite of what either of them wanted. Abby walks over to be next to Leah. She reaches out for her hand. 

“Hey, come dance with me,” says Abby.

“No thanks, Abbs,” replies Leah. Leah hates dancing, and dancing in front of a bunch of drunk losers from her school? Leah would rather die.

“Oh, come on, party pooper, it will be fun,” Abby says all smiley and convincing. Leah doesn’t want to give in to dancing, but she sure as hell wants to give in to Abby. So she does. She sighs reluctantly, takes Abby’s hand, and gives in. The smile Abby gives her may be worth all of it. Of course Abby dances effortlessly, knowing just how to move her body to the rhythm of the song. Leah thinks everything must come easy for her. Abby knows that’s not true, her parents uprooted her whole life senior year and brought her to a white dominated suburb where she’s either the anomaly or nothing but the new girl. Abby has to let herself be extraordinary, to free herself from expectations, to be the girl nobody ever thought she could be. So she’s here, on the dancefloor at her first party of senior year, being the absolute life of the party with somebody who might just be the death of it. Though Abby learned to never give up on herself, and she doesn’t want to give up on Leah. So she encourages Leah to dance, like actually dance instead of moving her limbs around like wet noodles. For a second, Leah gets really into it, and even starts to smile, then this out of the blue shift happens. Bram changes the song, and it’s a slower one, but it’s one of Simon’s favorites. Meaning he probably bribed Bram into putting it on at a fucking party and being the suckers that they are for each other, Bram gave in. People starting pairing up, couples especially, ya know, the standard protocol for when a slow tempoed romantic song comes on. Then, there’s Leah and Abby, kind of just standing there waiting for somebody to make a movie. Leah shifts her eyes to the rest of the party. Simon and Bram dancing together, Ethan and his boyfriend, Garrett and his new girlfriend. Even Martin Addison has found somebody desperate enough to dance with him. Nobody even knows why he showed up, or even built up the nerve to. Most surprisingly, there’s Taylor Metternich, dancing with a girl, and it’s romantic style. She even leans down to kiss her. Leah didn’t know Taylor liked girls, hell, nobody knew anything about Taylor despite the fact that she’s in drama club. Her and Leah were alike, Leah thought, the only thing people new about them were the people they associated with. For a second, it gives her courage, Leah was going to ask Abby to dance. That is, until Nick cuts in.

“May I have this dance?”, Nick asks Abby. Abby looks between Nick and Leah. She gives Leah a look as if she’s asking for her permission. Leah just nods, Abby would never turn down a dance with her friend, but this feels oddly personal for Leah.  So she runs upstairs, and she doesn’t check if anybody is waiting for her. She wants to be alone. Never in her life has she felt so humiliated, and Leah gets embarrassed easily. Of course she’s the only one to blame. Abby doesn’t know Leah is bisexual and may or may not have some really strong feelings for her. Abby doesn’t know that Nick likes her. Nick doesn’t know these things either. Leah can’t be mad at Abby or Nick for anything, but it still really fucking hurts. Like she finally got this courage and confidence that she’s never had, just for it to get torn away in seconds. So she finds herself in Bram’s bedroom, crying on his floor into her white dress, her mascara leaving black stains. She couldn’t give less of a shit about that. All she’s doing is replaying the last two minutes in her brain, and maybe thinking a little about what it would be like if she were slow dancing with Abby. How close they would be like in her bedroom earlier. This time they would be face to face, their lips centimeters apart. She thinks about Abby’s lips and the red lipstick she’s wearing tonight to match her costume. For a second, she forgets everything that happened, until the song playing from downstairs starts penetrating her ears. On the upside, it’s the bridge of the song, which means it's almost fucking over. 


	2. Two.

The idea that heaven is upstairs and hell is downstairs didn’t get the memo at this party. Upstairs Leah is living her own personal hell, but downstairs is a smooth paradise. It’s sort of crazy really, a party full of drunk, horny high schoolers  slow dancing to a song chosen by none other than the chaotic Simon Spier. Maybe it’s a bit romanticized to say everybody is slow dancing, rather than slow grinding. That’s more like it. Then there’s the platonic outliers like Nick and Abby. Nick’s arms around Abby’s waist and Abby’s arms around Nick’s neck. A six inch gap separating their bodies, basically shouting ‘hey, we’re just friends.’ Nick wants to pull Abby a little bit closer, or in other words, date her. Abby can sense the way that Nick feels about her. The way he inches his body closer, the way he keep staring at her lips. Her and Nick have been close since she came to Creekwood, they share a similar personality. They’re both sweet and funny and confident and smart and loyal to their friends. However, Abby wasn’t sure she liked Nick like the way he liked her. Abby didn’t want to think about her feelings though, all she could think about was Leah. The way she just stormed off. More importantly, how Abby got her to dance, and to really smile, to let loose. Abby wanted to see Leah smile like that forever. Abby wasn’t sure how she felt about Nick, but she sure as hell was sure how she felt about Leah. 

When the song changes from slow back to uptempo Abby dwells down there for a while. She wants to find Leah, but she also wants to give her space. She has another beer and dances with her friends. She’s not drunk, not even close, but her friends are. Simon, Nick, Garrett, and Bram were racing shots, so now she’s the sober friend in the group of drunk boys. She doesn’t try to think about her status right now, she just lets the minutes roll by. Dancing, dancing, dancing. Then it happens, her open invitation to run off to Leah.

“Hey, has anybody seen Leah?,” asks Simon. “I feel like I haven’t seen her all night, and to think we got couples costumes…,” he jokes.

“Yeah, I saw her like ten minutes ago, she went upstairs I think,” says Nick. Has it really only been ten minutes? It felt like an hour in Abby’s brain.

“I’m going to go look for her,” Abby states.  _ Finally _ , is what she is thinking. Abby basically runs up the stairs. She’s been to Bram’s house before, but with the party going on it felt like everything has been rearranged. She opens the door to what she thinks is the bathroom, only for her to find out its a guest room where to juniors are engaging in some...explicit activities. Abby wishes she could bleach her eyes. She opens the door to the next room, hoping she doesn’t have to watch another live porno. She realizes it Bram’s bedroom, his bookshelf when you first walk in is adorned with soccer trophies. On the floor is none other than Leah Burke. In the same state as she last was, crying into her dress. Abby walks over to her at a gentle place. She places her hand on Leah’s shoulder tenderly. Leah takes her head out of her lap, her mascara has run all down her face. Her blue-green eyes are circled with black. Abby still thinks she looks beautiful.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” asks Abby. “If you wanna talk about it, I’m here.” Abby was a really fucking beautiful person. If Leah was sure of one thing, it’s that Abby was the most beautiful person on the interior and exterior that she’s ever known.

“It’s j-just, it’s dumb,” Leah cries. Abby sits down next to her.

“Your feelings aren’t stupid, Leah.” 

“It’s just, I like someone, and they’re here...and they don’t like me. I just feel stupid you know? Because I almost told them.”  _ Ouch. _

“It’s not stupid Leah, stop saying you’re stupid.” This makes Leah scoff, but Abby continues, “You’re Leah Burke. You’re witty and funny and smart. You’ve got this ability to love your friends more than anything no matter how much you pick on them.” This makes both of them laugh, “and that smile, that signature Leah Burke smile that doesn’t appear very often, but when it does, the whole world kind of stops for a minute.” 

That was enough for Leah, she cups Abby’s face and kisses her. She can’t resist it any longer. So she kisses her, and it’s confident, it’s in a very un-Leah Burke fashion. God, does it feel good to have that confidence. Abby pulls back for a second.

“I-I’m sorry,” Leah says, “I wasn’t thinking.”

“You know, I may have to take back my speech, maybe you’re not that smart if you listened to that and didn’t think I wanted to kiss you back.”

“Oh, shut up Suso,” and they kiss again, and again, and then they’re full on making out in Bram’s bedroom. They’re lost in this , the way each other’s lips feel. It’s the first time either of them have kissed a girl, and they’re both questioning why they have denied themselves the pleasure for almost eighteen years. Abby is stradling Leah, cupping her face while Leah’s hands are in Abby’s hair. It’s getting heavy certainly heavy enough to forget they’re at a party until they hear Simon and Bram making their way toward Bram’s room.

“Shit!,” Leah exclaims, and squirms out from beneath Abby. They try to fix themselves, rearrange their disheveled hair, and wipe Abby’s red lipstick from Leah’s mouth in the ten seconds they have before Simon and Bram inevitably walk in. Do boys even notice these things? Who knows. They sit down own the floor like they are having a normal, friendly conversation when Simon and Bram walk in.

“Oh, hey ladies, didn’t realize we were interrupting, but, this is my room so…,” Bram says and giggles at his attempt at passive aggressiveness. He and Simon clearly wanting to be alone. He’s also really fucking drunk.

“As you wish, boys,” Abby states, and her and Leah leave the room.

“Do you want to go back to my place?”, Leah whispers as her and Abby walk down the stairs. Abby smiles and nods, biting her lip a little bit. Leah might explode. They say their goodbyes to Nick and Garrett who are laying on the couch and too drunk to stand up. 

The walk back to Leah’s place isn’t very far, but it feels intense. There’s a tension there that wasn’t there before. Most likely the norm when you make out with your after a sappy conversation. They don’t say anything about it. They mostly just laugh at funny things Garrett did throughout the night, and agree that Abby certainly had the best costume. When they get to Leah’s house, her mom is asleep, just like she was before they left. They head to Leah’s room to get ready for bed, using Leah’s make-up wipes to fix their now destroyed faces. 

“Umm, I’ll change into my pajamas in the bathroom,” Leah offers.

“Or you could stay here,” Abby offers back. Leah’s face turns beat red. “You don't need to feel self conscious around me.”   
“I know Abbs, thanks.” Leah says and she stays in the room. She’s never gotten changed in front of a friend before, but this is Abby, and they’ve gotten a little bit past friend territory. Abby and Leah find out they both prefer to sleep in the middle. They’re sharing the center of the bed, their bodies are touching, their lips centimeters apart.

“You know, when you said you liked somebody, I never thought it was me,” says Abby.

“Well I never thought you would like me back, so I guess we’re even, I thought you liked Nick.”

“Nick? No, he’s just a friend. I didn’t even realize he liked me until we danced”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, anyways, I was totally fixated on this girl I know who’s crazy passionate and beautiful and talented, and it turns out she likes me. So I guess we’re even.”

“I guess so.” They kiss again, and it’s not heavy or heated or lustful. It’s soft and loving and reassuring. It lets Abby know that she found that thing she could really really fall in love with. It lets Leah know that it’s okay to show people what’s beneath the surface. So they fall asleep wrapped in each other’s tender touch, and for right now, they’ve got everything they need.


End file.
